History Through Fiction - The Podcast

In episode 1 of our Author Spotlight series, founder and editor of History Through Fiction chats with Elan Barnehama, author of the novel Escape Route. During the interview, Barnehama talks about the influence Bob Dylan’s music had on him in his youth, the importance of breaking the cycle of generational trauma, and what it truly means to be a New Yorker. Don’t miss it! 

History Through Fiction is proud to announce our upcoming podcast series “Author Spotlight”, featuring fourteen new interviews with historical novelists talking about their books, their craft, and their journeys to publication. New episodes will be released weekly beginning Monday, January 16. 

In our final episode of Season 3, host Colin Mustful chats with Addison Armstrong about her new novel The War Librarian. During the conversation, Armstrong talks about her love of words and reading, the challenges of writing a dual timeline narrative, and the inspiration she receives from her sister who is studying professional aviation at Auburn University. She also talks about the history of war...

In Season 3, Episode 14 of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, host Colin Mustful chats with Elizabeth Churchill, author of the novel Desolation of the Wicked City. During the conversation, Churchill talks about the history of piracy in Jamaica, the challenges of being a lawyer and fiction writer, and the process of starting her own press, Baroness Publishing. Finally, she inspires listeners by...

In Season 3, Episode 13 of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, host Colin Mustful chats with Eileen Brill, author of the novel A Letter in the Wall. During the conversation, Brill talks about the letter she found the wall of her home that inspired this story. She also talks about the research she did to learn more about the women who write the letter, how she creates relatable, complex character...

In Season 3, Episode 12 of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, host Colin Mustful chats with Taylor Brown, author of Wingwalkers. During the conversation, Brown talks about the unique tidbit of information in William Faulkner’s biography that inspired him to write this story. He also talks about the history of Barnstorming, his long and precarious road to success as an author, and his own backgr...

In Season 3, Episode 11 of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, host Colin Mustful chats with Liza Nash Taylor, author of the novel In All Good Faith. During the conversation, Taylor talks about using her home at Keswick farm as a prominent setting for her novels. She also talks about the history of candy making (yum!), her background in the fashion industry, and the transition to writing fiction...

In Season 3, Episode 10 of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, host Colin Mustful chats with Alina Adams, author of My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region. During the conversation, Adams talks about basing the novel on the family stories she heard growing up as an immigrant from the Soviet Union. She also talks about the history of the Jewish Autonomous Region, her experienc...

In Season 3, Episode 9 of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, host Colin Mustful chats with Michael X. Wang about his new novel Lost in the Long March. During the conversation, Wang talks about leaving medical school to pursue being a writer, the Communist propaganda he discovered that led him to research Mao’s Long March, and the advantage of using fiction to give readers a fuller view of histo...

In Season 3, Episode 8 of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, host Colin Mustful chats with Roberta Seret about her new three part historical novel series Transylvania Trilogy. During the conversation, Seret talks about creating a hybrid voice that combines history and fiction, the history of Romania and how it became a part of the European Union and NATO, and about Romania’s involvement in the...

In Season 3, Episode 7 of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, guest host and HTF author Alina Adams chats with L. Bordetsky-Williams, author of Forget Russia. During the conversation, Adams and Bordetsky-Williams talk candidly about their families’ histories in Soviet Russia and the improbable notion of returning to the Soviet Union from America. They also talk about their thoughts on cultural a...

In Season 3, Episode 6 of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, host Colin Mustful chats with Alena Dillon about her new novel Eyes Turned Skyward. During the conversation, Dillon talks about the Women Airforce Service Pilots or W.A.S.P. program, the decade-long process of revising the novel, her long and uncertain path to publication, her transition from nonfiction to fiction, and the perseveranc...

In Season 3, Episode 5 of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, host Colin Mustful chats with Julie Janson about her newly republished novel Benevolence. In this conversation, Janson talks about a lot of important topics related to Indigenous land rights and history in Australia. As a Burruberongal woman of the Darug Aboriginal Nation she talks about growing up in the Australian Bush and learning...

In Season 3, Episode 4 of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, host Colin Mustful chats with Judith F. Brenner about her new novel The Moments Between Dreams. During the conversation, Brenner talks about the challenges faced by her characters who must overcome Polio and Intimate Partner Violence. Brenner also talks about her decision to set the novel in post-WWII Chicago and her experience publis...

In Season 3, Episode 3 of History Through Fiction: The Podcast , host Colin Mustful chats with Georgie Blalock, author of The Indiscreet Princess. During the conversation, Blalock talks about Princess Louise, the daughter of Queen Victorian and the main character of her novel, and her struggle to pursue her passion as an artist. Blalock also talks about going from screenwriting to narrative fictio...

In Season 3, Episode 2 of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, host Colin Mustful chats with K.M. Butler, author of the historical Viking Normandy novel The Raven and the Dove. During the conversation, Butler talks about the Norse settlement of Francia during the late 9th century which is the setting featured in his novel. He also talks about the opening scenes of his novel, his fascination with...

In Season 3, Episode 1 of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, host Colin Mustful chats with Yvette Manessis Corporon, author of the novel Where the Wandering Ends. During the conversation, Corporon, whose family descends from Greece, talks about the history of the Greek Civil War, the heroism of Queen Frederica, and the beautiful Greek of Corfu that acts as the setting of her novel. Finally, she...

We’re so excited for Season 3 of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, we made a teaser! Season 3 features fifteen episodes with historical novelists who’ll be talking about their books and their craft. A new episode will be released every Monday beginning September 12, 2022. The teaser includes one quote from each of the fifteen authors. Check it out and don’t forget to subscribe for alerts about...

History Through Fiction is proud to announce that season 3 of our podcast is kicking off on Monday, September 12! Hosted by founder and editor Colin Mustful, season 3 includes fifteen episodes released weekly. Each episode features a historical novelist who will be talking about the craft of weaving elements of history and fiction to create engaging and enlightening stories. Notable interviews inc...

This special bonus episode of History Through Fiction: The Podcast features Allegra O’Neill and Katie Wilson, 2 of the 3 co-founders of Simily, a self-publishing platform that elevates creative writing. In this special episode, host Colin Mustful chats with the two co-founders about their groundbreaking online platform that connects writers with readers, democratizes the way stories gets seen, and...

In this special bonus episode of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, HTF intern Reina Markert talks with Sheila O’Connor about her novel Evidence of V: A Novel in Fragments, Facts, and Fictions. Called an ambitious blend of fact and fiction, Evidence of V explores history of incarcerating young girls for the crime of “sexual immorality”, something that happened to the author’s maternal grandmoth...

Time for another Bonus Episode! This special episode of History Through Fiction: The Podcast features Adele Myers, debut author of The Tobacco Wives. Called "a beautifully rendered portrait of a young woman finding her courage and her voice” by New York Times bestselling author Lisa Wingate, The Tobacco Wives is a coming-of-age novel set among the tobacco fields of North Carolina that sheds light...

Time for a Bonus Episode! This special bonus episode of History Through Fiction: The Podcast features Marlie Wasserman, author of The Murderess Must Die. Host Colin Mustful talks with Wasserman, a debut novelist, about her choice to tell the story of Martha Place, the first women executed by the electric chair. Wasserman also talks about the yellow journalism that plagued media coverage in the lat...

Season 2 of History Through Fiction: The Podcast is coming to end, but we have one more interview for your listening pleasure! Episode eleven features Rachel McMillan, author of numerous books and novels including The London Restoration and her upcoming The Mozart Code. In this episode we talk with McMillan about her love of historical fiction, what architecture can teach us about the past, and th...

We’re ready for episode ten, are you? History Through Fiction: The Podcast continues with Amy Belding Brown, author of Emily’s House, a novel about Emily Dickinson's longtime maid, Irish immigrant Margaret Maher, whose bond with the poet ensured Dickinson's work would live on. In this episode we chat with Brown about her choice to write a story about Margaret Maher rather than Emily Dickison. We a...